In ancient Greek mythology, Prometheus, out of his love for humans (Philanthropos), stole the sky fire from Zeus and gave it to humans, but he himself endured the pain of eagles pecking his liver every day. Philanthropos (love for mankind) is the root of Philanthropy (charity). In ancient Greece, charity was originally regional and specific. It was a generous donation of rich people to their city-states, which was later influenced by church culture. , Believes that every member of society should have a beneficence (benficence) and have the obligation to provide help to any unfortunate people in need. Therefore, Philanthropy mainly refers to private individuals and social donations to vulnerable groups and public welfare undertakings. Some people in our country have defined charity from the perspective of individual: “Having a heart of love is called kindness, and doing a lot of help is called goodness.” It is emphasized that charity is the unity of personal inner benevolence and outer good deeds. It can be seen that both China and foreign countries emphasize that charity is an effective and reasonable re-allocation and development of private and civil society resources, an activity used to help the unfortunate. The motivation of charity comes from two aspects: people’s inner good spiritual satisfaction and the driving of external interests.
In the West, philanthropy has experienced the following three different historical periods: In the first stage, private donations existed as the main way to help the poor. Before the Industrial Revolution, European society mainly used private donations to the poor at the beginning, or helped the poor through the church. After the 18th century, some rich people established hospitals through stock companies to treat the poor; in the second stage, private donations served as government An effective supplement to the welfare system. At the beginning of the 20th century, the second industrial revolution brought a lot of wealth to American capitalists. The steel king Carnegie wrote the article “The Gospel of Wealth”, which laid the foundation of the modern foundation. During the same period, Rockefeller’s donations to education and health, especially to the establishment of China’s modern medical and health services, have contributed a lot. It can be said that my country has dispatched four “Beijing Concord, Nanxiangya, Dongqilu, and Xihuaxi” to support Wuhan’s fight against the epidemic. The predecessor of the big medical team benefited from the support of American philanthropists; in the third stage, modern philanthropists were transformed from entrepreneurs and began to try to directly use their wealth and entrepreneurial talents to solve social problems. Although the government-led social welfare model has not been changed, a group of new philanthropists headed by Bill Gates in the United States have adopted a charity model that is different from direct donations in the past. They either invest in companies engaged in public welfare or directly Use your own entrepreneurial talents to engage in charity and solve some major social problems that the government cannot pay attention to in time.
The people of our country have always had a long history of fine charity “helping the poor and helping the poor”. In the early stage of reform and opening up, as private wealth was still in the accumulation stage, my country established a charity system with unique Chinese characteristics, that is, charity organizations with an administrative nature. These official charity organizations popularized the concept of charity and improved the livelihood of some professional fields. Played a positive role. However, its backward management mechanism, opaque financial operation mechanism, and management method that does not respect the wishes of donors have been criticized by the public. In this Wuhan anti-epidemic rescue, three local official charity foundations were designated as the main recipients of donations. During the epidemic, on the one hand, there was a steady flow of donated materials and money that arrived; on the other hand, the major hospitals on the front line of the epidemic were in short supply, and the lack of protection of medical staff made people worry. Obviously this happens because these official foundations have serious problems in the last mile of distributing and distributing donated materials. The underlying reason behind it is that their current charity concepts and management methods can no longer effectively respond to social emergencies. Relief the crisis. Non-governmental charitable organizations such as Wuhan Zall Foundation, Hanhong Foundation, Sany Foundation, etc. all raised urgently needed supplies and sent them to the frontline people in need of assistance. Non-governmental charity organizations have strong resource mobilization capabilities and efficient supplies. The distribution capabilities have left a deep impression on people, but these outstanding non-governmental charitable organizations are only a small part of our country’s more than 7,000 foundations. If we treat government-run and private-run charities on an equal footing, with transparent information, private charity organizations The enthusiasm of the people will be greatly mobilized, will relieve the urgent needs of the local government, and will send warmth to the people in need of assistance in the first time.
Article 3 of my country’s “Charity Law” stipulates: The charitable activities referred to in this law refer to charitable activities carried out voluntarily by natural persons, legal persons and other organizations in the form of donating property or providing services. Judging from the provisions of the Charity Law, my country’s legislative concept of charity is in line with international standards. Charity activities are in addition to government financial allocations and independent of the government’s third-party citizens and non-governmental organizations spontaneously assisting the unfortunate people Activities to enhance social welfare. The problems exposed in Wuhan’s anti-epidemic charity donation show that my country still has a long way to go in popularizing the “Charity Law”, carrying out the social reform of official charities, and giving play to the functions of non-governmental charitable institutions. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, huge private wealth has been created. How can “private wealth” be transformed into “social wealth” through charitable donations with confidence? How to implement people’s love through public welfare organizations? These are all questions we need to think about. We believe that returning to the common sense of charity and the origin of charity is the best answer!
